FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

I remembered last night that the name of the landlord was Bob Feather, I asked him about the Rushworth story on night and he confirmed it.
I was first told the story by the farmer at Greystone Farm across the road. His name is on the tip of my tongue... Tattersall! His son was called Roy. I used to pick their milk up in the late 50s and early 60s and they were unique in one respect. They had a very early Morris car with the body removed and a flat in its place. They used it as a milk stand. It was a magneto ignition system so no electrical problems, it always started with a couple of swings of the starting handle. When they had finished milking in the morning they chucked the kits on the back, started it up and drove it 100 yards down to the side of the road and I picked the milk up off it. Then they drove it back up with the empties ready for the following morning.
A Morris dealer from Nelson saw the car on the side of the road and after some negotiation they agreed a swap, a new Morris Minor for the very rare old car. Came the day, Roy (Totally illegally!) drove it down to the dealers early one morning and they swapped. Roy got into the new car and immediately drove it into a wall! It turned out that on the early cars the footbrake was on the right and the accelerator in the middle. Roy hadn't got his brain in gear and had put his foot down on the accelerator instead of the brake! Luckily it was slow speed and only minor damage.
They had to build a milk stand and used the tractor for the milk after that.

[Stanley]

Read my post in 'Today I shall be mainly...'. Today I shall be revealing a forgotten corner to an enquirer who has asked the right question of the right bloke. My information is prime source and will change his life. No, I shall not reveal what it is, that's up to him but some forgotten corners are buried so deep they continue to do damage for almost 50 years and suddenly I find myself in a position where I can do something about it. I hope it makes a difference.
[PS I had to think very carefully about responding. It's a very responsible position to be in. I have satisfied myself that I am doing the right thing.]
Life is very spooky at times!

[Stanley]

Yesterday's forgotten corner went well. Seems to be approved all round.
It was yesterday that reminded me of another forgotten corner. For years and years those of us who knew watched with great affection a platonic love affair between a bachelor from Marton and a widow in Barlick. He used to visit Barlick by bus once a week and they went for a walk in the park. Nobody ever said anything but we all approved and were happy for them.
That in turn brings to mind another similar matter. There used to be a fearsome foreman in Sagar's Tubber Hill quarry. I can't remember how it happened but it became common knowledge that a lady he was bothering with called him 'Biscuit' as a pet name. The lads in the quarry used to get a rise out of him when he was leaning on them by calling him Biscuit to his face and it never failed in getting him even more angry. Come to think, I have an idea that Jack Platt told that story in his LTP transcripts which have a lot of information about the quarry as he worked for Sagar's for many years. Worth reading, there is a very good story about a fearless crane driver who regularly overloaded his machine and toppled it down into the quarry but always survived. Then there is the story of how Mr Hardisty lost his sight when a hang-fire shot exploded in his face. If you have a bit of time go and have a read, Jack had a very interesting life and now it is all a forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

One thing I remember very clearly about Jack Platt's story was that he had a very rough beginning in life as his mother was alone and had to raise her kids by her own efforts. They lived in a poor cottage at White House Farm and then Amen Corner up near Park Close quarry. His mother wove at I think it was Barrowford when they were at White House and then in Barlick when they were at Amen Corner.



Amen corner.

Both involved long walks to and from work in all weathers 6 days a week. That was bad enough but one day on her way home to Amen Corner from work in Barlick she was attacked and her purse stolen. It's the only such account I ever came across in the research fro the LTP and I have always felt so sorry for the poor woman. Can you just imagine what a blow that would be for her? She had enough on her plate and would she ever feel safe again on that walk?
In all my research I have never come across a mugging of an individual like that. There was 'crime' but it was usually poaching or illegal White Lightning production, only occasionally theft and even then it wasn't personal. I've always had the impression that there was an unwritten rule that poor folk didn't rob other poor folk but that may be a rose tinted view of history.
Whatever, I have never forgotten that story about Mrs Platt and it touches me to this day.

[Stanley]

One of the great advantages we have today is ease of communication but we still have to work at it. 70 years ago I corresponded regularly with my Auntie Dos in Australia. In those days a letter sent there didn't get a reply for about 3 months. That's the forgotten corner!
What triggered this thought was a mail I got this morning from her grandson, Grant Maloney and I have responded straight away. Contrast that with letters sent by sea! We have no excuse today for losing contact!

[Stanley]

Clifford Turner tapping the cupola furnace at Ouzledale in the 1970s.

I was having a conversation with my mate Steve yesterday and he told me that melting at Ouzledale was long gone, it's all being done in China now. I have been out of touch with what is happening there for a long time. I remember having a conversation in the 80s with a bloke called Trevor Grice who was CEO of Reynolds who had bought the Holcroft Foundry at Rochdale and were going to demolish it and build a B&Q store on the site. That led to us getting the Whitelees engine and a donation of about £30,000 if I could get the engine out in ten working days, I did it but that's another story. What I remember is me asking him why they were closing the foundry. He said then that anyone running a foundry in the UK needed to have their head examined. He said it was uneconomic, dirty and plagued by H&S regulations and apart from that, show him a move that would reduce his labour force and he'd go for it. (I remember thinking at the time I was glad I wasn't working for him!)
That was at the same time that Clifford was melting at Long Ing and the Ashby's must have come to the same conclusion though I do believe they installed electric melting but couldn't make it pay.
It was a dirty hard job and I suppose it's good that men don't have to do it now but it was employment and a skilled trade. Globalisation has a lot to answer for.
Later when I was helping to build canal boats at the marina in Barlick I learned that spares for most of the old makes of engine had to be ordered from India and they were making complete engines as well.
My mind of course goes back to the old days when Johnny Pickles was running B&P at Wellhouse. He had his own pattern shop and got all his casting done at Ouzledale Mill where George Ashby had set up what became the foundry at Long Ing eventually. How times have changed and foundry work in Barlick is now another forgotten corner.



The moulding shop at the new Havre Park foundry set up by Henry Brown and Sons in 1922 which replaced Ouzledale at one point. When they failed and liquidated, George Ashby who was foreman for Browns, went back to Ouzledale and carried on there. But that's another story.

[Stanley]

Here's a forgotten Corner from Earby. Taken out the front of the Clarence Club Earby around 1950 ,the two gents on the right are Harry Hodge(snr)and Bobby Taylor two old Earbyers. Sent by Rosie OGFB.



I have been told that the club was in this barn at the bottom of Stoneybank. Sorry about the election slogan!

[Stanley]

I was listening to an R4 programme yesterday on the state of the National Trust. George Monbiot was attacking them on the grounds that they have outdated attitudes. Part of the NT defence was that one of their most successful attractions is a complex of back to back houses in Birmingham.



All these houses in East Hill Street are back to backs and of course are matched in Hill street. That got me to wondering how many back to backs are left in the town, I confess I don't know. Perhaps we have a potential tourist attraction here!
Back to backs would of course be illegal now but there is much to be said for them. They are ideal as starter homes for a young couple or as a down size for the elderly. No through draughts and only one wall and half the roof exposed to the weather so easy to maintain and heat. I remember when I once stayed the night in a flat in the London Barbican I remarked that they had a lot in common with back to backs and it didn't go down very well!

[PanBiker]

Quite a few still up on the Croft. Roberts and Alice Streets mainly, some have been knocked through and effectively have two front doors.

[Stanley]

Yes, I have noticed them on my walks. John Street might have a couple as well.



This one certainly is two up and two down. Ernie Roberts lived in it in the 1930s.

[PanBiker]

Mrs Brown used to live there and I used to mend her telly 40 odd years ago.

[Tripps]

Came across this Whittingham

I was aware of the place since Uncle Jim lives nearby, and worked there for some time. I remember going for a post lunch walk round the lake, in the extensive grounds. Can't help thinking that if it was still open there would be a lot fewer rough sleepers.

Impossible of course.

[Stanley]

My friend Joan worked there for many years on Violent Wards. She loved the place and her charges. She was irate when it closed because many of the residents were put in totally inappropriate community care flats.

[Cathy]

I read the Whittington story Tripps, very interesting. Thanks.

[Tripps]

I read the Whittington story Tripps

You're welcome.

Actually I think that typing Whittington rather than Whittingham qualifies as a bit spooky.

I spent some of yesterday afternoon checking out Whittington in connection with quite a different matter.
There is a 'family' grave there from 1869 with a link to a court case involving destruction of books (from memory).

I got there via this excellent site Wigan World which led me to here. A billion graves on which I found the grave.

Lockdown - do I look bothered?

[Stanley]

My brother Leslie trained as a nurse after leaving Silentnight and in the end opted for mental nursing. He worked at a very large hospital in the SE, I can't bring the name to mind, I think it was the largest in the country at the time. He told me that one interesting thing he discovered was that the average height of the population in the vicinity of the hospital was greater than the national average and it is thought that this is because one of the main criteria when selecting staff had been size and the greater average was a result of the descendants of this selection process.
There's a forgotten corner for you.

[Stanley]

The name of that hospital came back to me this morning, my brain must have been working on it. It was Cane hill at Coulsdon in Croydon. (LINK)



I was walking up through this avenue of trees on the Green in the sunshine yesterday afternoon, thinking about the re-location of the Jubilee Fountain and it struck me that the majority of present day inhabitants of the town will have no memory of this.



This image was done from almost the same spot as the first one of the trees and is the old railway sidings in the 1950s. The War Memorial and the fountain which are now in the same space were both up in Letcliffe Park at that time. Things have changed a lot in the last 70 years!

[Stanley]

Have a look at THIS image of the Commercial Hotel at Gisburn in 1955. (The other pics of Gisburn in the same series are also worth looking at)
In the 1950s the road through Gisburn was the main route from NE England out to the west and in particular, Blackpool. This became very important for traders along the road when the Blackpool Illuminations were on. A trip to 'The lights' was a favourite destination for coach firms right across the country as far as the NE coast. Pubs and cafés had an annual harvest catering for the trippers. The Gisburn area was about right for a refreshment halt and this is why Sunderland Brewery, Vaux, built the Coronation Hotel at Horton Road End.
The connection in my head with the Commercial comes about because I used to deliver the milk to the Coronation each morning when I was doing the early triangle and Horton pick up of milk. I always got a cup of coffee and a bacon butty and Bunty who ran the place called me Freddy because I was the spitting image in those days of Freddy Garrity the pop star. The Coronation did a roaring trade with the coaches during the Lights and I once asked her why she barred Wallace Arnold coaches from Leeds, they always stopped at the Commercial in Gisburn. She told me it was because if Wallace Arnold's used the halt she had to have four extra staff on continually cleaning the toilets. Bunty had a very low opinion of the Leeds trippers!
All a forgotten corner now, the advent of the motorways killed the A59 traffic and the old road houses died off. That's why the Coronation and the Commercial sites became redundant and were used for housing.

[Stanley]

Funny how things pop into your head and another forgotten corner surfaced yesterday. My mind went back to a sunny morning in the Seventies. I was tramming down the coast road below Ayr through Girvan and on my way to pick cattle up at Ballantrae. I stopped to get a morning paper at a small store on the roadside and remember getting a 50p coin in the change, the first I had ever seen, we were used to ten bob notes. I queried this and the man told me that they had replaced the note. I remember saying at the time that this was the end of Empire!
I get quite nostalgic about the old heavy coins, half a crown was a serious amount of money and the coin reflected that, then there was the florin as well. All these are forgotten now and we have become used to, if not reconciled to the new coinage.
I remember a shopkeeper in Barlick telling me about a customer who queried the new coins and when he explained them to her she said "Oh, it won't affect me, I live in Kirby Lonsdale!"
I confess I still think in Imperial units of measure and convert decimal prices to Pounds Shillings and Pence and am astounded at the way prices have risen in the last 70 years. I admit to being totally out of touch!
On a parallel note we were taught mental arithmetic at school and learned about the relationships between measures of length and weight and 240 pence to the Pound. That is definitely a forgotten corner!

[plaques]

On the subject of old money how many people remember these. ½ penny. I found this one hiding in an old tumble dryer that I was dismantling. A 1974 ½ penny. went out of circulation about 1978. I always wondered where it had got to.

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P9170107 (2).JPG

[PanBiker]

At the time of issue they were confident enough to mint hundreds of thousands of these convinced that the denomination would be useful. No one in retail liked them and it was a waste of time and effort anyway because it was devalued by inflation not long after first issue.

[Stanley]

I remember the Farthing, a tiny copper coin that had a Wren on it. I can remember sweet prices that used farthings.... HERE'S a good history of the farthing. I learned from it, I didn't know that Half, Third and Quarter farthings were minted!

[chinatyke]

I remember the Farthing, a tiny copper coin that had a Wren on it. I can remember sweet prices that used farthings.... HERE'S a good history of the farthing. I learned from it, I didn't know that Half, Third and Quarter farthings were minted!

If I remember correctly I was paid in them when I worked at Swindle & Bowker in 1962. I was paid 3 groats+tuppence farthing per hour. I kid you not.

[Tripps]

I bought a full set of pre-decimal coins. Not sure why. The case has seen better days.
I calculate the face value of the whole set is just 62 New Pence.

Coins tails.jpeg

coins heads.jpeg

[Stanley]

David. You've reminded me of the threepenny Joey and the Ship Ha'penny. I seem to remember an appeal for something that only accepted Ship Ha'pennies.
Is my memory at fault or were there once silver threepenny coins? Something is nagging at the back of my head.